Oak Ridge Death of Kulmiye Aganeh

8/19/09
Letters Editor
The Toronto Star

Dear Editor,
Isabel Teotonio’s article re the horrific death of 22-year-old Kulmiye Aganeh is somewhat inaccurate and full of omissions. (“Mother wants answers as to why son died.” Aug. 17). First, Kulmiye’s mother Ikram Said did in fact listen to and act on his pleas for a lawyer – to say she “never listened” is not true. Second, Kulmiye was not “schizophrenic”; a psychiatrist concluded he was not “mentally ill”. Kulmiye was understandably angry at being fraudulently labeled, drugged and locked up in psychoprisons like Whitby Mental health Centre and the Oak Ridge hellhole of Penetanguishene Mental Health Centre. Third, Kulmiye “collapsed” and died within minutes after guards forcibly injected (overdosed) him with 85 milligrams of zuclopenthixol, another dangerous neuroleptic. Fourth, racism as a major factor,raised by several human rights activists at the conference, was not mentioned.The Midland OPP’s criminal investigation into this homicide and the subsequent inquest will probably be another whitewash.
Don Weitz
1401-38 Orchard View Blvd., Toronto,Ontario M4R 2G3

The International Campaign to Ban Electroshock (the ICBE) supports the CAPA vigil-memorial for Esmin Green who died tragically in New York.

Esmin Green will not be forgotten ever. Esmin was tortured by psychiatry and its neglect towards her. Esmin need not have died at all but she did. Why?
Esmin waited for over 24 hours in an emergency room and no one took notice of her being physically ill and then falling over onto the floor. She died and still no one took notice. This is an injustice! This is abuse! This is neglect! This is criminal what happened to Esmin.

Psychiatry is notorious for torturing people and they have been doing this for over 100 years now.
Psychiatry tortures people with their toxic drugs, their brain damaging electroshock, their labelling of people with bogus mental illnesses that do not exist, and being stigmatized with these so called labels, with restraints, and locking people up against their will.
In Ontario, CTO or otherwise known as Community Treatment orders still exists today whereby psychiatric survivors are forced to take toxic psychiatric drugs in the community or they are forced back into a psychiatric facility. This is social control of the people of Ontario.
Psychiatry is the biggest medical fraud out there today. Psychiatry is dangerous and evil.
Esmin was one of psychiatry’s victims. May we never forget what happened to her. It could happen to me or you or to someone you know.
Psychiatry will be dismantled as it is not gaining the ground it once did as people are becoming aware psychiatry is not a real science it never was
and how psychiatry has a hall of shame as long as highway 401.
Esmin did not deserve to be treated this way. Her human rights were violated.
her dignity was violated, her medical rights were violated and as a human being she was left there to die on a hospital floor with no concern for her at all.
May we take one minute of silence now to remember Esmin.
I thank all of you who have come out and have supported this Esmin Vigil-Memorial today.
Shame! shame on psychiatry – Psychiatry will come tumbling down to its knees.
Millions of people have been tortured by psychiatry.
What happened to Esmin is despicable, unethicial, barbaric, an atrocity and a crime against humanity.
We are not able to be with you all today but we are with you all in spirit.

We remain in solidarity,
Sue Clark-Wittenberg and Steven Wittenberg
directors of the International Campaign to Ban Electroshock
The ICBE in Ottawa

a legal victory over forced drugging!

NEWS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 22 2009

CONTACT:
Jim Gottstein
907-274-7686
jim.gottstein@psychrights.org

In an important decision issued today, William S. Bigley v. Alaska Psychiatric Institute, http://psychrights.org/States/Alaska/CaseXX/S13116/090522BigleyvAPIsp-6374.pdf, the Alaska Supreme Court significantly advanced psychiatric patients’ constitutional due process rights when the state seeks to force them to take psychiatric drugs against their will.

“One of the things they held,” said Jim Gottstein, President and CEO of the Law Project for Psychiatric Rights (PsychRights) and the attorney who handled the case, “is that if the State is holding someone in a psychiatric facility, they must provide a feasible alternative to the forced drugging if the alternative satisfies the State’s asserted justification. The State’s only other option is to let the person go.”

The Court also held that in order to allow the person a realistic opportunity to prepare a defense, when filing a forced drugging petition, the State must provide a written statement of the facts underlying the petition, including the reasons for the forced drugging, information about the patient’s symptoms and diagnosis; the medication to be used; the method of administration; the likely dosage; possible side effects, risks and expected benefits; and the risks and benefits of alternative treatments and nontreatment. “This is very important,” Mr. Gottstein said, “because up until now, they just checked a box that said the person was incompetent to decline and the facility wants to drug the person. Then the State comes in with a witness who testifies untruthfully and there is no way to have been prepared to rebut it.”

Equally important, the Court ruled the person’s lawyer must be given access to the person’s medical and psychiatric records in advance of the hearing and adequate preparation time. “The problem is judges have been misled for years that these drugs increase safety and are beneficial to patients,” according to Mr. Gottstein, “The truth is they decrease safety, are ineffective for most, are physically very harmful, and prevent many people from recovering. The evidence on this is clear, but the way these cases have been rushed through without allowing adequate time for a defense, these facts have not normally been revealed to the judges.”

The Law Project for Psychiatric Rights is a public interest law firm devoted to the defense of people facing the horrors of forced psychiatric drugging and electroshock. PsychRights is further dedicated to exposing the truth about psychiatric interventions and the courts being misled into ordering people subjected to these brain and body damaging drugs against their will. Extensive information about these dangers, and about the tragic damage caused by electroshock, is available on the PsychRights web site: http://psychrights.org/.

# # #
–

James B. (Jim) Gottstein, Esq.
President/CEO

Law Project for Psychiatric Rights
406 G Street, Suite 206
Anchorage, Alaska 99501
USA
Phone: (907) 274-7686) Fax: (907) 274-9493
jim.gottstein[[at]]psychrights.org
http://psychrights.org/

PsychRights®
Law Project for
Psychiatric Rights

The Law Project for Psychiatric Rights is a public interest law firm devoted to the defense of people facing the horrors of forced psychiatric drugging. We are further dedicated to exposing the truth about these drugs and the courts being misled into ordering people to be drugged and subjected to other brain and body damaging interventions against their will. Extensive information about this is available on our web site, http://psychrights.org/. Please donate generously. Our work is fueled with your IRS 501(c) tax deductible donations. Thank you for your ongoing help and support.

Antipsychiatry Radio Transcript – Take Back Our Radio – Mar.11/09

ANTIPSYCHIATRY RADIO – TAKE BACK OUR RADIO
Transcript – March 11, 2009

Welcome to a very special edition of Antipsychiatry Radio. I’m Don Weitz, your proud producer-and-host of Antpsychiatry Radio. Originally titled Shrinkrap over 12 years ago, Antipsychiatry Radio was producing and broadcasting critical opinions and exclusive interviews with courageous psychiatric survivors and antipsychiatry activists and critics of the psychiatric system since 1994–until I was suddenly ‘dismissed’ and the program cut without notice, cause or reason on May 5 last year. Like many other CKLN programmers who’ve been censored, harassed, threatened, dismissed or fired, and locked out by a rightwing staff and board of directors, Antipsychiatry  Radio was forced into exile. But no more, I’m back fighting to reclaim Antipsychiatry Radio, and 60 other programmers and hosts are also fighting to reclaim CKLN as the community, democratic and revolutionary voice of oppressed people in Toronto and beyond.

Tonight, I’m dedicating this special edition of Antipsychiatry Radio to all women psychiatric survivors and sister programmers. In honour of International Women’s Day, our sisters and feminists everywhere, tonight’s program features a special pre-recorded interview with Bonnie Burstow. Dr. Burstow is an outstanding and outspoken feminist and antipsychiatry activist, she is on the faculty in the Departments of Adult Education and Counselling Psychology at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE). A little over a week ago, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Burstow about her views on feminism, antipsychiatry and electroshock, and how she became an antipsychiatry activist. These are a few edited excerpts from that interview. Let’s listen to Part 1… [play CD, 7:46 minutes]

We’re now going to take a short break with an excerpt from the song “There Is
No Hole in My Head” by Malvina Reynolds [play CD 1 minute]

We’re continuing a special interview with feminist and antipsychiatry activist Dr. Bonnie Burstow. Let’s listen to Part 2…  [Play CD, 6:50 minutes]

Like Dr. Burstow, some dissident professionals, shock survivors and activists have publicly protested against the psychiatric system, particularly electroshock. Many shock survivors, antipsychiatry and social justice activists including Dr. Burstow and myself want it banned. Electroshock is a symbol of coercive-biological psychiatry and the “mental health system” itself which is actually a social-control system based on the 3Fs of force, fraud and fear. Force because virtually all-psychiatric procedures like forced drugging, electroshock and physical restraints are assaults. Fraud because psychiatric diagnostic labels including “schizophrenia”, bipolar mood disorder”, ADHD” and “mental illness” itself do not refer to any physical illness or disease in the body; psychiatric diagnoses are subjective moral judgments of conduct or character assassinations.  Fear because being locked up, forcibly drugged and not told when you’ll be released triggers fear or panic. Psychiatrists, their promoters and Big Pharma ceos who tell us that psychiatry is “medical science” are lying.

Electroshock is psychiatry’s major brainwashing weapon; it’s a memory-destroying, brain-damaging psychiatric procedure that does not deserve to be called “treatment”. It always causes some permanent memory loss, brain damage, trauma and fear. Several studies, including the comprehensive 2007 study by Dr Harold Sackeim and others, clearly and conclusively document the fact that both young and elderly women suffer significantly more memory loss and brain damage than men. “ECT” statistics I’ve obtained with great difficulty from Ontario’s Ministry of Health during the last 5 years clearly show that 2-3 times more women than men are shocked and roughly half of these women are over 60, which is why I also call shock a form of elder abuse. The neurological and psychological damage is generally permanent; hundreds (maybe thousands) have died after they were shocked. For example, well-known poets and writers such as Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, and Ernest Hemingway committed suicide shortly after they were shocked; the careers and lives of actress Frances Farmer and artist-social justice activist Paul Robeson and countless others were ruined after they were locked up and electroshocked.  In her book The Politics of Cruelty, feminist writer Kate Millett has called electroshock not only cruelty but also torture. It’s obvious that electroshock is a human rights issue, it should also be a women’s issue, but so far electroshock is not a priority item on the feminist agenda.

Many women shock survivors, like Carla McKague and Paivi Lane in Toronto; Sue Clark in Ottawa; Wendy Funk in Whitehorse, Yukon; Helene Grandbois in Montreal; Mary Maddock in Cork, Ireland; in the United States many other shock survivor-sisters including Barbara Cody in Chicago and Linda Andre in New York have called electroshock, barbaric, cruel, a torture and crime against humanity. Grassroots resistance led by women survivors and feminist-activists is growing. During the last 3 years, women shock survivors and feminist-activists have led anti-shock rallies and protests in 3 cities in two countries–Canada and Ireland. On Mother’s Day in 2007, anti-shock protests were held in Toronto, Montreal and Cork, Island. The Toronto protest was organized by feminists, antipsychiatry activists and shock survivors in the Coalition Against Psychiatric Assault (CAPA); in Montreal a similar protest was organized by the Comite Par-chocks in collaboration with Action Autonomie and Collectif Pour le Defense des Droits en Sante Mentale de Montreal; in Cork, Ireland, the anti-shock protest was organized by MindFreedom Ireland. These major protests were led by women survivors and human rights activists; their powerful theme and demand was and still is Stop Shocking Our Mothers and Grandmothers; it was this demand on Mother’s Day in 2008 when more anti-shock protests were held in Ottawa, Montreal, and Ireland. Women were the chief organizers and featured speakers; they undoubtedly will be this year when more protests are held in Toronto, Montreal and Cork, Ireland. The growth of these protests and demands to ban electroshock means that electroshock resistance is going global, it means that we are witnessing an international movement against electroshock and psychiatric oppression and for human rights. This is very empowering, a tribute to all women survivors, antipsychiatry activists and feminists who have courageously broken their silence, spoken out and acted out against electroshock and psychiatric oppression of women.
For more information on electroshock and the struggles to ban it, check out these websites:http://capa.oise.utoronto.ca, icbe.wordress.com, and endofshock.com
This is Don Weitz thanking you for listening to this special edition of Antipsychiatry Radio-in-exile. My special thanks to Ron Nelson and Dale Whitmore for their technical support; Susy Pocasangre, Stephanie Gude and Carmelle Wolfson who worked hard and long to organize all the special programs and this empowering broadcast, and the Coalition Against Psychiatric Assault that endorses TAKE BACK OUR RADIO.
Stay tuned for more special International Women’s Day programming.

Eric  Jonsgaard
Senior Director
Guardianship Options
Lutheran Social Services of America/LSSA

Dear Mr. Jonsgaard,
Of behalf of the Coalition Against Psychiatric Assault (CAPA), we are writing to you re the legal case of Mr. Ray Sandford. We understand that your social services organization has been appointed general guardian for Mr. Sandford, and that Ms. Tonya Wilhelm, a staff or volunteer worker with LSSA, has been assigned his “guardian ad litem.” We also understand that Mr. Sandford has been court-ordered to undergo electroshock (“ECT”) on a weekly or  bi-weekly basis against his will, and that he is appealing this forced treatment. Further, we understand that Mr. Sandford has already undergone 37 or 38 electroshocks and that more will be administered –over his expressed and repeated refusals.

One of CAPA’s top priority issues is organizing against electroshock and working toward a universal ban. We therefore are very concerned whenever people are forced to undergo a psychiatric procedure like electroshock—without informed consent. We wish to point out that we are credible critics of electroshock and very knowledgeable about its many health risks including permanent memory loss and brain damage. We therefore strongly and publicly oppose electroshock. In our collective judgement, forcibly shocking Mr. Sandford constitutes assault, a serious violation of his human rights. Although LSSA may have no direct role or authority re Mr. Sandford’s electroshocks and court appeal, it has chosen to be remain silent, despite the fact that Mr. Sandford has given permission to human rights and advocacy organizations to publicize his situation
Although LSSA may not be a participant or have no authority to intervene in Mr. Sandford’s court case, as a progressive and religious organization it has a moral and public responsibility to speak out on ethics and human rights issues. It is our judgement that electroshock, particularly forced electroshock, is a serious violation of medical ethics and Ray Sandford’s human rights. In this light, we urge the LSSA to at least question the morality of using the authority and police powers of Minnesota to force a vulnerable citizen like Ray Sandford to undergo electroshock. We point out that this so-called  “safe, effective, and lifesaving treatment” has permanently damaged the lives and careers of many of our relatives, friends and colleagues in Canada, the United States and other countries. We fear that electroshock has already damaged Mr. Sandford’s brain and destroyed his life. (See websites http://capa.oise.utoronto.ca, http://endofshock.com)

We look forward to your reply.

Sincerely,

Dr. Bonnie Burstow, Chair, Coalition Against Psychiatric Assault (CAPA)

Shaindl Diamond, PhD, Candidate, Dept of  Counselling Psychology, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, Member of CAPA

Mel Starkman, Member of CAPA

Don Weitz, Member of CAPA

Executive Committee, Coalition Against Psychiatric Assault

(signed)

C: Bishop Mark S. Hanson, Ecumenical Lutheran Church of America/ELCA

Miriam L. Woolbert, Ecumenical Lutheran Church of America/ELCA,

Communication Services

Please reply to: Dr. Bonnie Burstow – bburstow@oise.utoronto.ca

Sue Clark Announces CAPA Award

Hi everyone:

I posted my CAPA award and announced it on a high traffic website called ottawastart.com based in Ottawa.

Please look at the press release which says “Sue Clark-Wittenberg receives an award in Toronto.

I copied it here from the website which is below.

take care, Sue
————————————————
ottawastart.com

11 • POSTED ON December 04, 2008
Sue Clark-Wittenberg receives an award in Toronto
Posted by Sue Clark-Wittenberg  Subscribe to the OttawaStart RSS Feed for instant news updates.

Sue Clark-Wittenberg got an award from the group “Coalition Against Psychiatric Assault (CAPA) on September 27, 2008 in Toronto. The award was for “Lifetime Antipsychiatry Activism”

Sue Clark-Wittenberg an activist in Ottawa received an award from the group called “Coalition Against Psychiatric Assault (CAPA) in Toronto on September 27, 2008.  The award was for “Lifetime Antipsychiatry Activism”.  CAPA websites:  capa.oise.utoronto.ca, capacanada.wordpress.com

Sue is a former psychiatric patient.  Sue has been free of psychiatry since 1990.

Currently, Sue is the director of the International Campaign to Ban Electroshock (ICBE) website URL:  icbe.wordpress.com

Sue and her husband Steven Wittenberg founded the ICBE in 2007.   The ICBE will lobby all governments worldwide to ban electroshock.

130 hospital in Canada give electroshock also known as ECT, shock, shock therapy and electroconvulsive therapy.

This year the ICBE held a successful protest against electroshock on Parliament Hill on May 14th.  Every year the ICBE will hold a similar protest every Mother’s Day on Parliament Hill at 1 p.m.

Websites on ECT:

breggin.com, ect.org, mindfreedom.org, capa.oise.utoronto.ca, endofshock.com, icbe.wordpress.com, banshock.org, psychrights.org

Contact Sue:  2005.sueclark@gmail.com or call her at:
613-721-1833

Stop shocking-torturing Ray Sandford/letters

November 15, 2008
Attention:
Chair, Human Rights Committee
Office of the High Commission on Human Rights
United Nations

Dear Chairperson,
I am forwarding the letter below, initially addressed to Mr.Tim Pawlenty, Governor of Minnesota, for your information and possible action. It concerns the forced electroshocking of Mr. Ray Sandford, a psychiatric outpatient in Minnesota. Despite his repeated refusal, Mr. Sandford has been court-ordered to submit to the memory-destroying, brain-damaging  psychiatric procedure of electroshock (“electroconvulsive therapy” or “ECT”).  Together with many other psychiatric survivors and human rights activists, I am absolutely convinced that the health, safety and human rights of Mr. Sandford and thousands of other citizens are being seriously and repeatedly violated by physicians, particularly psychiatrists, as well as Governor Pawlenty and the State of Minnesota.

I would appreciate knowing if the Human Rights Committee considers electroshock, particularly forced electroshock, a form of torture, a serious human rights violation. Many of us psychiatric survivors and human rights activists believe it is. For over twenty-five (25) years, hundreds, if not thousands, of electroshock survivors, other psychiatric survivors, human rights activists, health professionals including several psychiatrists and neurologists, and concerned citizens have publicly and frequently protested against electroshock. We have repeatedly urged a total and immediate ban on electroshock in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and New Zealand.

To date, I have not received a reply from Governor Pawlenty. Please acknowledge receipt of my letter, I look forward to your reply.
Sincerely,
Don Weitz
Executive Member, Coalition Against Psychiatric Assault – http://capa.oise.utoronto.ca
1401-38 Orchard View Blvd., Toronto,Ontario M4R 2G3 Canada

November  12, 2008

Governor Tim Pawlenty
State of Minnesota
tim.pawlenty@state.mn.us

Dear Governor Pawlenty,
As an antipsychiatry activist and psychiatric survivor of insulin shock treatment many years ago in Massachusetts, I am writng to strongly protest against the forced electroshock (“ECT”) inflicted on 54-year old Ray Sandford in Minnesota. I understand Mr. Sandford is being forcibly taken (“escorted”) to Mercy Hospital  (“Mercy”?)  where he is being shocked against his will or without consent every Wednesday morning. Given the fact that psychiatrists and other doctors do not inform patients about the common and severe risks of permanent memory loss and brain damage, and given the fact that psychiatrists and other doctors frequently use blackmail or threats and intimidation to get “ECT” patients to consent, no person can possibly give “voluntary and informed consent” to electroshock. Informed consent in the “mental health system” is a compete myth, a sham

Electroshock itself is a traumatic and horrific psychiatric procedure (not “treatment”);  it always causes some degree of brain-damage including permanent memory loss. After having listened to the personal and public testimonies of numerous shock survivors in Canada and the United States and after having read many independent studies of electroshock in the medical-psychiatric literature during the last 30 years, there is absolutely no doubt that electroshock is inherently destructive, inhumane and unethical; the use of force is particularly torturous. State-sanctioned use of police powers to inflict electroshock on Mr.Sandford against his will – and inflicted on any other US citizen for that matter – is a serious violation of his constitutional and human rights, a serious violation of the United Nations’ Convention Against Torture, and a serious violation of Article 5 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights that specifically prohibits any “cruel and unusual treatment or degrading punishment, or torture”.

Thousands of shock survivors, including myself, advocacy and human rights organizations and several psychiatrists and neurologists in the United States and other countries have advocated a total ban on electroshock. Some states in your country have restricted the use of electroshock – for example, Texas, California and Oregon. Why not Minnesota?

I am copying this to the United Nations’ Committee Against Torture, other international human rights bodies, advocacy organizations of psychiatric survivors, several concerned psychiatrists and neurologists, and the media.

In the interests of Mr Sandford’s health, safety and human rights, I urge you to use your office and  power as Governor to stop electroshocking Ray Sandford now.
Stop state-sanctioned torture in Minnesota!
I look forward to your reply.

Sincerely,
Don Weitz
Executive member, Coalition Against Psychiatric Assault – http://capa.oise.utoronto.ca
1401-38 Orchard View Blvd., Toronto, Ontario M4R 2G3

c: MindFreedom International
United Nations, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
Committee Against Torture
Amnesty International
Coalition Against Psychiatric Assault
National Association for Rights Protection and Advocacy
Editor-in-Chief, The New  York Times
other media

Shock survivor-activist Linda Andre’s book Doctors of Deception

Shock survivor-activist-author Linda Andre plans to come to Toronto next year- I definitely will read her book Doctors of Deception: What They Don’t Want You to Know About Shock Treatment I hope many others also read her book
Don

Begin forwarded message:

From: Rob Wipond
Date: October 7, 2008 2:02:47 PM EDT (CA)
To: “can-survive-lists.riseup.net”
Subject: [can-survive] ECT Book: doctors of deception
Reply-To: can-survive@lists.riseup.net

This one’s looking like it’ll be good…
rw

Doctors of Deception

Price: $26.95

Subtitle: What They Don’t Want You to Know about Shock Treatment
Author: Linda Andre
Subject: Health and Medicine
Cloth ISBN: 978-0-8135-4441-0
Pages: 336 pages
Publication Date: February 2009

http://rutgerspress.rutgers.edu/acatalog/Doctors_of_Deception.html

Praise for Doctors of Deception

“This book is absolutely fascinating and extraordinarily well-written. It is a major contribution to the current literature.”
—Michael Perlin, professor of law, New York Law School

“Linda Andre’s book is both a powerful memoir of her own experience as an ECT “patient” and a documented account of the underbelly of the ’shock industry.’ It raises profound questions about ECT that both psychiatry and the National Institute of Mental Health—if they want to be honest with the American public—desperately need to address.”
—Robert Whitaker, author of Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill

“For many years, activist and writer Linda Andre has been forcefully and cogently examining the reigning (and mostly unchallenged) professed claims and practices of our medical establishment’s wizards of shock therapy. In this thoroughly-researched, pathbreaking, and essential book, the author undraws the curtains that have for too long cloaked these claims, practices, and wizards. It is a work of courage, heart, and brains”-Jonathan Cott, author of On the Sea of Memory

Description:

Mechanisms and standards exist to safeguard the health and welfare of the patient, but for electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)—used to treat depression and other mental illnesses—such approval methods have failed. Prescribed to thousands over the years, public relations as opposed to medical trials have paved the way for this popular yet dangerous and controversial treatment option.

Doctors of Deception is a revealing history of ECT (or shock therapy) in the United States, told here for the first time. Through the examination of court records, medical data, FDA reports, industry claims, her own experience as a patient of shock therapy, and the stories of others, Andre exposes tactics used by the industry to promote ECT as a responsible treatment when all the scientific evidence suggested otherwise.

As early as the 1940s, scientific literature began reporting incidences of human and animal brain damage resulting from ECT. Despite practitioner modifications, deleterious effects on memory and cognition persisted. Rather than discontinue use of ECT, the $5-billion-per-year shock industry crafted a public relations campaign to improve ECT’s image. During the 1970s and 1980s, psychiatry’s PR efforts misled the government, the public, and the media into believing that ECT had made a comeback and was safe.

Andre carefully intertwines stories of ECT survivors and activists with legal, ethical, and scientific arguments to address issues of patient rights and psychiatric treatment. Echoing current debates about the use of psychopharmaceutical interventions shown to have debilitating side-effects, she candidly presents ECT as a problematic therapy demanding greater scrutiny, tighter control, and full disclosure about its long-term cognitive effects.

About the Author:
Linda Andre is a writer, activist, and the director of the Committee for Truth in Psychiatry. Since receiving ECT in the early 1980s, she has been an advocate for the human and civil rights of psychiatrically labelled people, particularly the right to truthful informed consent. She has been interviewed by numerous publications and media such as 20/20, The New York Times, and the Washington Post.

–

RobWipond.com Culturally-critical commentary, journalism and satire
Canadian Mindscape Monitor Daily monitoring and critical analysis of current events, media coverage and scientific research surrounding “mental health” issues in Canada and globally.
Rob Wipond’s Satires on YouTube

Elecroshock Ineffective & Damaging – Release from Ireland

PRESS RELEASE

Scientific evidence shows that ECT is ineffective and damages patients

Dublin, 2 October 2008 — The Wellbeing Foundation today published on its website a series of scientific papers which clearly demonstrate both the ineffectiveness of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) and that it causes both short and long term cognitive and intellectual damage to those who are given it.

Last June two Green Party senators, Deirdre de Burca and Dan Boyle, together with independent senator David Norris, introduced a Bill to ban the use of involuntary electroshock ‘therapy’. A debate began. Since then, the usual crew of institutional psychiatrists in Ireland have defended the use of ECT and have again pronounced it to be both safe, with no long term effects, and effective. They are either ignorant or lying, as the evidence abounds that ECT causes severe damage to patients, up to and including death (from shock-induced heart attack) and is ineffective in the longer term.

As a public service and to contribute some facts and evidence to the debate, the Wellbeing Foundation decided to re-publish this selection of peer-reviewed scientific papers from prestigious medical journals. The papers can be downloaded in pdf form direct from our website, www.wellbeingfoundation.com.

ECT is no therapy at all. That is the clear conclusion from research carried out by leading figures in the field.

Anti-ECT campaigners, whether lay people or qualified doctors, have been vilified by certain supporters of ECT in the psychiatric profession and accused of producing no evidence to support their claims that ECT is both damaging and ineffective. Here, then, is that evidence, and it is safe to say that this evidence comes from professionals far more eminent in their field than any of our critics here in Ireland.

Most of this evidence has been available to professionals and the curious public for over a year. For example, the first scientific paper we reproduce, ‘The Cognitive Effects of Electroconvulsive Therapy in Community Settings’, was published in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology in 2007. One dates from 1998, the others from 2005, 2006 and again 2007. One might be tempted to think, from the subsequent contributions by certain Irish psychiatrists, that the latter are ignorant of this important research or have not read and evaluated it.

One of the notable things about the the first paper mentioned is that its lead author, Harold J Sackheim, is a prominent advocate of the medical model and of the school of biological psychiatry, a school whose very basis we question. Dr Sackheim has for many years been a leading advocate of ECT. Yet in this paper he comes as close as one could expect to a public recantation of his previous views. Dr Sackheim, to his credit, has led a team which collected evidence, solid, empirical evidence, of the cognitive impairments (read, memory loss and intellectual impairment) caused by ECT even in its ‘least worst’ form. And Dr Sackheim has taken account of that evidence — he now rejects, at the very least, the widespread use of ECT, and more particularly the use of most forms of ECT (certainly those widely used here in Ireland).

This gamekeeper has turned poacher. Would that his Irish colleagues take note, and even follow suit.

The other papers are as valuable, and all give evidence supporting and bolstering our view that ECT is medically dangerous and should be banned. The earliest is Dr Peter Breggin’s famous study from 1998, ‘Electroshock: scientific, ethical, and political issues’, published in the International Journal of Risk & Safety in Medicine .

‘Patients’ perspectives on electroconvulsive therapy: a systematic review’ was published in the British Medical Journal in January 2005; ‘Memory and cognitive effects of ECT: informing and assessing patients’ in Advances in Psychiatric Treatment’ in 2006; ‘Cognitive rehabilitation: assessment and treatment of persistent memory impairments following ECT’ in the same journal in 2007; and we include, for its inherent interest and for providing some profound insights by those on the sharp end, ‘The Electroshock Quotationary’ by Leonard Roy Frank, published in June 2006.

Most institutional psychiatrists in Ireland have been too fond of claiming that their profession is united in advocating ECT and in rejecting accusations that it damages mental and intellectual functioning in several serious ways. This is simply not true: their profession, at least elsewhere, is seriously divided on this issue and cannot agree either on the efficacy of ECT or its serious effects. The evidence is clear.

In such circumstances, the politicians who will shortly return to the debate on the three senators’ Bill to ban involuntary electroshock must take the approach of considering primarily the political, ethical and human rights aspects of the current ECT regime in our mental health system and avoid the medical debate.

Even if they were to conduct hearings into the medical arguments, with evidence from all camps (including patient groups and ‘consumer’ advocates), it would most likely be fruitless — a rabbit hole of metaphysical claim and counter-claim from which they might not ever return.

The issue should be decided on one criterion — do current rules on the administration of ECT conform even to the minimum standards required to uphold the human rights of the patient? The answer to this is clearly NO — and on that basis, and that basis alone, the senators’ Bill should be passed into law.

Ends

For more information or to arrange interviews with a Wellbeing representative, contact Basil Miller (086 8182082).

The scientific papers can be downloaded direct from the home page of our website.

www.wellbeingfoundation.com

Basil Miller
_________________________
Head of communications

the wellbeing foundation
2 Eden Park
Dun Laoghaire
IRELAND

tel +353 1 2800084
e-mail wellbeing@wellbeingfoundation.com
websites www.wellbeingfoundation.com
www.depressiondialogues.ie

Blowing the whistle on shocking the elderly

http://www.ect.org/doctor-loses-job-after-electroshock-controversy/ (see ect.org site)

In 2001, psychiatrist Jaime Paredes was forced to resign from Vancouver’s Riverview Hospital after courageously exposing the fact that large numbers of elderly patients were electroshocked at that hospital for several years. His critical letter to the B.C. Ministry of Health sparked an “independent” investigation, which was another government whitewash; the B.C. report proposed only cosmetic-technical changes in “ECT”; it never questioned the ethics of shocking elderly people or electroshock and its brain-damaging effects itself. Although fewer elderly patients may be shocked at Riverview today, in 2007 (according to B.C.Ministry of Health statistics) 40% of patients shocked were 65 years and older, 85 were women in their 80s or 90s. The B.C. Ministry of Health’s statistics also reveal that at least 2 times as many women as men have been shocked for many years – a common finding or ratio in other provinces and states where “ECT” is administered. Electroshock is still administered in Riverview and hundreds of other hospitals across Canada and the United States.
To date, no other Canadian psychiatrist, neurologist, or medical doctor has publicly criticized electroshock, none has called for a moratorium or ban., and no provincial or territorial government has called for public hearings.
Don